


Purple

by meimentomori



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, klangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12775665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meimentomori/pseuds/meimentomori
Summary: Lance wakes up one morning to someone pacing outside his door, only to fall out of his bed before he can greet them.





	Purple

Lance was a failure.

That’s what he told himself, at least. It was a thought that echoed in his mind when he least expected it. It kept him up at night, clutching the sheets as he tossed and turned with nightmares of his teammates voices, belittling him to make him feel like nothing. Whenever the other paladins took to the air, lions soaring up in a rainbow of colors, Blue always left a few moments later. In battle, Lance would take the brunt of the Galra’s attacks, not responding to Shiro, or Keith, or even Allura when they told him how idiotic the idea had been in the first place. He was a part of Voltron, the only weapon in the universe capable of defeating Zarkon. He was one of the members of a symbol viewed across the universe as one of hope, a reason for them to unite as one and fight back at the ones who’d held them prisoners for longer than they could remember. 

It was impossible for him to believe that.

Lance was a teenager, a seventeen year old who’d happened to be put in a piloting team with someone who’d been studying the sky above them in secret. It was mere coincidence that, the night he wanted to take Hunk and Pidge out on the town, the ship with Shiro in it had come hurtling towards Earth with a light that attracted not only his eyes, but his heart as well. It was chance that when they found the Blue Lion, sitting tall and proud above Lance, that he would knock on the forcefield. He happened to be drawn to it because of the personality he was born with, one that he knew someone else in the Garrison could’ve had. Someone else could be sleeping in the bed he was right then, someone that he might never have met before. They could be here, helping the team in ways Lance felt he was incapable of doing. He sighed and turned away from the emptiness that laid in his field of vision, facing the bland grey of the castle walls. It looked like nothing but darkness in the dead of night. Just like his heart felt, empty.

Morning came without warning, as they called it. Lance didn’t even know what morning in space was. All he knew was that somebody was awake, pacing just outside his door, meaning it must’ve been time to eat. He wasn’t hungry. He rarely was, nowadays. The person’s footsteps stopped when Lance rolled out of bed and onto the floor, landing with a thump. He hadn’t meant to fall. Somehow, during his restless slumber, his legs had intertwined themselves with his sheets. As Lance tried to untangle them, an outstretched hand appeared in front of his face. Looking up, he saw Keith, smiling slightly with a major case of bed head.

“Somebody didn’t get enough sleep.” Lance chuckled as he tried to prop himself up off of the floor by himself.

It wasn’t working. Everytime he tried, the sheets would slip underneath of his palm and he’d fall right back to the cold metallic floor once again. After about five attempts and many frustrated cursings from Lance, Keith had had enough. He do his hand without warning but Lance wasn’t about to give up. He tried to pull his hand out of Keith’s grasp but couldn’t. His hold on him was as strong as concrete, solid and secure. Keith looked into Lance’s eyes with gaze hard and serious. They were the eyes of a soldier, one who would never let his comrades down. It was amazing to Lance how much strength he held with just one look. They sat there for a moment, Lance still on the floor and Keith knelt down in front of him, until he pulled him up off of it and close to him, right into a hug.

“Sometimes we all need somebody to help us.” Keith said as Lance wrapped his arms around him. It was a moment of weakness, Lance tried to tell himself, a pity that Keith couldn’t control. There was no way that he had actually wanted to hug him but Lance took advantage of the situation, arms squeezing Keith tighter, just to make sure he wasn’t a figment of his imagination in one of his dreams. “It’s not something you can control. We’re all here to help you up when you fall. Only if you let us.”

“But you all have talents that I don’t.” Lance’s voice was soft and broken. Keith could feel his weight shift into him as he held him up so he wouldn’t fall. “There’s another alien out there somewhere who would kill to be where I am right now. They’d do a better job flying Blue than I ever could.”

Keith sat down with Lance, laying him across his lap so that he was facing him. Without thinking, Keith started stroking his hair, letting Lance adjust himself in the slightest ways so that he felt more comfortable. Though he couldn’t remember his mother well, there was one memory that Keith held close to his heart. It was when she would lay him down, just like he had Lance now, and sing him lullabies as she stroked his hair until he fell asleep. It seemed his whole life Keith had been a light sleeper. It was even worse in space but not nearly as bad as Lance was. He was smiling now, looking up at Keith with drowsy love in his eyes. 

“Nobody could ever be a better Blue paladin than you.” Keith half smiled down at him. Lance shook his head but the older boy pressed a finger to his lips to keep him from arguing. “You have motivation that I don’t have. You have a family you want to get home to, people you want to protect. I’ve never had to do that until now and I still don’t think I’m as good at is as you are.”

“Yes you are, Keith.” Lance’s face fell, smile wiped clean from his lips. “You’re here with me now, aren’t you?”

Keith shook his head at this, continuing on, voice now softer than before.

“I was the one who wanted to leave Allura behind after she saved Shiro.” He began, still stroking Lance’s head. His hair was soft and silky, like flower petals in the spring. “I’m the one who’s always picking fights with everyone. You’re the one who protects us, who holds us up when we’re down.You’re one of the legs of Voltron! Nothing will ever change that, no matter how good at it you think you are or not. Blue chose you and it chose you for a reason. You can’t give up when your legend’s just begun.”

Lance’s breath hitched in his throat as Keith’s hand fell from his hair. It took a hold of his own, running his finger across the back in a way softer than Lance thought Keith to be capable of. This was the side of him that nobody ever got to see. The brief times when Keith let his guard down and let someone in. This time he chose Lance, just like Blue had chosen him. All Lance saw was a tree, with scratches on the trunk, slightly tilted from the storms it faced, sitting tall above him. Even in times like this, Lance thought Keith could handle things better on his own. He thought that he didn’t need anybody, when it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Blue and red, while beautiful and bright on their own, were singular colors. They stood on their own, separate from the rest. Once they bled into each other, they made purple, a color known to many as that of royalty. The one that kings dawned on them in the forms of capes, leading nations with swift flicks of their wrists. The two of them could rule galaxies together. They’d shared bonding moments that wouldn’t have felt the same if they’d been with anybody else. The feelings for each other were all there, the love they harbored in their hearts overflowing whenever they were near each other.

If only one of them was brave enough to make a move, they could build each other up instead of break each other down.

The insults they threw at each other, the teasing they did at seemed like every chance they got, was their armor. It was the layer they wore to protect themselves from letting go of the rivalry that was what started their friendship in the first place. Rivals turned friends was what they thought the other wanted to be and nothing more. Keith didn’t know that Lance’s jokes, as dumb as they were sometimes, were for him, to make him laugh on days when he looked as if that was the only thing he needed. Lance didn’t know that the reason why Keith hadn’t wanted to go back and save Allura that day was because he knew how much he loved her, and that he might’ve not come back alive if he went without hesitation. It was the smallest things they did for the other that made them realize just how much things between them had changed. Lance wanted to thank Keith for being there, for being someone now that he was able to touch, able to talk to. Keith wanted to thank Lance for not rejecting him, for letting him in so that he could stay to help him feel like the person he saw him as. 

It was then that they both leant in towards each other, with eyes shut tight.

Neither of them knew when they had done it. There was something about a kiss that scared the two of them more than being abandoned by the other. At least then they didn’t have to go through a period of rejection, that area of grey where things could somehow turn into love but would most likely fizzle out into nothingness, leaving them without the other to rely on. They were both adventure seekers. It was what brought them into space those weeks ago. Any risk they had to take, they were willing to. It was what made this dangerous, a love that would be so unpredictable. Neither of them cared. Risks had brought them to where they were then. One more couldn’t hurt. Closing their eyes created another problem, however. Neither of them knew if their lips would land on the others. Keith imagined Lance’s to taste of a hint of something minty, since the amount of toothpaste he used in the morning seemed to linger on his breath for hours after. Lance imagined Keith’s to taste of something salty, like the sweat that covered his face during the long hours he spent training. In these few seconds there was no time to think of the consequences. All they had to do was believe.

The kiss lasted no more than a few seconds. Lance had pulled away before it could. He was more terrified than Keith, whose face was as red as his jacket. Neither of them could speak. Lance was too focused on his racing heart, trying to take deep breaths to calm it down. Keith was too in shock that Lance hadn’t been disgusted, moreso that he had kissed back. Purple was a beautiful color. It shined in Keith’s eyes as Lance looked up at him from where he laid, trying to remember the way he looked right then, with a sort of surprise he’d never seen from him. It was the sort that was happy. Not of rage of fear, but of a joy that you only experienced so often when you fell in love. Purple was what they were meant to be, two lovestruck boys forming one relationship. Purple was the color that they saw when they closed their eyes from that day on, reminding them that the other was always a short walk away. Purple was their story, how they’d fallen in love. 

It was their love itself.


End file.
